PETpla.net Insider 06 / 2012

BOTTLE MAKING 27 PET planet insider Vol. 13 No. 06/12 www.petpla.net PETplanet: Which sizes of PET bottle for wine are particularly popular in the USA? Piercy: The 187ml PET bottle is extremely popular, with most US consumers buying it in packs of four. If the consumer fancies a glass of wine, he or she opens one of the little bottles and consumes it at one sit- ting. The 187ml PET bottle thus also incorporates the idea of freshness. As we see it, there will be an increased move towards the 187ml PET bottle in the coming years. In the long term we expect that glass wine bottles of this size may no longer be available on the market, being instead replaced by the PET variety. Growing demand PETplanet: How high is the per- centage of PET wine bottles currently consumed in the USA compared to glass wine bottles, and what percent- age of these can be allocated to the 187ml PET bottle? Piercy: The current share of PET wine bottles in the USA is around 4%. Considering that wine in PET only really became relevant here about five years ago, this is a very good result. 90% of all wines filled in PET reaches the consumer in the 187ml PET con- tainer. For the future we can see clear growth potential for this size of bottle. At the same time, we also estimate that larger PET wine bottles, such as the 1l or 1.5l size, will attract more consumer interest. The target group for this larger type of PET bottle could be consumers buying wine for par- ties with friends, for instance. By the way, in the past few years Amcor has notched up an average yearly growth rate of approximately 10% for PET wine bottles. This again demonstrates that wine in PET is definitely a growth market. For 2011 we were forecasting sales of 150 million units for the 187ml PET wine bottle alone. Wine in PET pioneers PETplanet: Which wine compa- nies are opting for wine in PET? Piercy: In the USA we mostly supply larger wineries, among them Sutter Home, the market leader for 187ml wine bottles. Sutter Home was a pioneer when in 2005 they began filling wine into 187ml PET bottles. The 187ml PET bottle was designed to look exactly like the 187ml glass bottle. In addition, the PET bottles could and still can be filled on an existing glass line. Sutter Home – and this is a clear signal to the US market as a whole – has since switched its entire 187ml bottle range over to light- weight PET containers. According to Wendy Nyberg, Marketing Director of Sutter Home, consumers are now confident that wine in PET bottles is of the same high quality and keeps as long as wine filled in glass bottles. They were also delighted that the 187ml PET bottle weighs just a sixth of the glass bottle and is smaller – although it contains an identical amount of wine – and has the added advantage of being unbreakable. Besides Sutter Home, other giants of the US wine industry we supply with PET wine bottles include Fetzer, Hopland, and Sonoma. Quality maintained PETplanet: Wine is a sensitive product that doesn’t tolerate any oxygen pickup in the container. What is Amcor’s approach to ensure the top quality to be maintained in PET bottles? Piercy: Amcor has taken great care to select a barrier coating for our PET wine bottles that upholds the quality of the wine to the fullest. We’ve made KHS’ Plasmax technol- ogy standard not just for wine but also for beer bottles, which on the US beer market still have an increasingly low market share. KHS gives us consist- ency, enabling us to always provide our customers with rapid solutions. As regards the Plasmax barrier coat- ing process the insides of our PET wine bottles are covered with an ultra- thin, completely transparent layer of glass. This glass layer prevents oxygen penetrating the PET bottles, ensuring that wine filled in a Plasmax- coated bottle has just as long a shelf life as wine bottled in glass. The taste of the wine is also not affected. Another benefit of this process is that PET bottles coated with Plas- max technology are 100% recyclable, making the system sustainable. PETplanet: What are your expec- tations of growth of wine in PET? Piercy: We expect that in the next few years, the yearly growth potential for PET wine bottles could be approxi- mately 10%. PETplanet: Mr Piercy, thank you very much for this interview. Fred Piercy, Director of wine and spirits at Amcor Rigid Plastics The Amcor PET bottles for wine are caoted with Plasmax barrier coating sensitive BEVERAGES